


dog days

by IuvenesCor



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Actual German Caleb Widogast™, Aged-Down Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Canon-Typical Violence and Profanity, First Meetings, Gen, everybody is human(ish), toying with canon backstories in a new setting basically, vigilantes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IuvenesCor/pseuds/IuvenesCor
Summary: This is hardly normal. People with supernatural abilities don’t justhappenevery day— well, not like this, anyway. She’s met low-level telepaths and hustlers who can talk you into doing anything, but she’s never met someone who can throw fire out of thin air. And she knows this kid is going to get put through some pretty intense scrutiny for what he’s done— and how he’s done it.Beau hates scrutiny.(Or, Beau the teenaged vigilante accidentally makes a friend? Enemy? Honestly, she has no clue.)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so firstly, this was supposed to be a little visualizing one-shot and then somehow it ended up being 15k and three chapters and, like… how??
> 
> VERY IMPORTANT: I have only seen up to episode 57 of Campaign Two right now, so most of what I use in the story goes off of that knowledge. It’s a bit out of date, but also blanket spoiler warnings for anybody who’s even further behind than me.
> 
> Anyway, I love my Empire Siblings so much, and I’ve had a hero universe floating around for a few years that I thought they’d be lovely in, so I figured I’d take a crack at it. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Back alleys are bullshit.

For one, everybody knows that back alleys are only for shady people. Nobody does anything legal in a back alley. Of course, they _can_ be useful for well-meaning lawbreakers who just want to do the right thing to make up for a past history of acting like a miscreant for no good reason, but there’s only so many of those people in town right now.

For two, it’s a lot easier to run across rooftops that are crammed side to side like floor tiles— which can only happen with an absence of alleyways— because running across rooftops makes it easier to scope out the city unseen. The only real downside to a bird’s eye view is the time it takes to get back down to the ground at the first sign of trouble.

Three roughnecks with two guns and one small blade, pushing around a stiff figure in a ratty coat, definitely is a great big billboard for trouble.

Beau pants heavily, air whistling through her lungs as she watches the scene play out, still recovering from the less-than-wise leap she took from the last rooftop to get to this spot. Trying to get here from the other side of the street— unseen— before the three goons could eviscerate anyone was a push of endurance, even for her. Adrenaline tingles through her core, the anticipation of a good brawl making it even harder to catch her breath. It plays out beautifully in her mind’s eye.

She can easily take on three people. Okay, not _easily,_ but she’s capable so long as she stays focused. The goons’ weapons are a wild card, but this is a risk she has to take. She can’t very well ignore the situation, or even try to leave it to the cops, and watch this one poor bastard get stomped into the pavement.

Vigilantes aren’t exactly supposed to make the news. (Some do it for the fame and glory, but those are the ones with legal protection up the wazoo.) The authorities haven’t really decided what they want to do with “superheroes,” neither condoning nor condemning their actions; but from Beau’s experience, cops don’t mind slapping cuffs on anybody who is in the vicinity of a little property damage or disturbance of the peace. 

Yet she can imagine the headline: “Hooded Hero Saves Man!” (It’s a stupid headline, sure, but she’ll leave the actual writing to the reporters.) It feels... _nice,_ to get acknowledged for making someone’s life better, even if nobody knows that the city’s faithful vigilante in blue is one Beauregard Lionett. 

She moves from her perch as the goons hiss threats at their victim, and the victim mumbles excuses and pleas that she can barely make out from here. There’s no easy way down from the rooftop, but some sort of venting or wiring pipe on the opposite side of the building is anchored just securely enough for her to rappel down to a safe height and drop down into a side alley. A quick body check before she steps out around the corner assures her shoelaces are as tight as her wraps, and her hood is fixed at the perfect compromise between keeping her face hidden and her targets visible.

A deep breath permeates through the tense energy building up inside her, relaxing her chest and arms even as the muscles of her face tighten with an eager grin.

_Right. Time to beat the shit out of some gangbangers._

After an arbitrary countdown, she bolts out from the skinny passageway and into the wider back alley, heading directly for the cluster of impending chaos ahead. Before they even get a chance to see her, she sees all four against the backdrop of a setting sun: the two with the guns, the one with the switchblade, and the unarmed guy pressing himself up against the wall, hand raised at them defensively.

And then.

_And then._

It’s something Beau’s never seen before. She’s heard stories, has been force-fed so much information through working as an Archivist. She knows that for every relatively average person like her running around with learned skillsets that can be used for good or for evil (or for somewhere in between), there are people with _gifts_ — some inherited, some acquired, all pretty freaking cool. 

But the sudden, almost invisible distortion in the air, and the faint glow at the fingertips of the man in the ratty coat, and the flecks of char forming around the skin of his hand, and the bolt of flame that leaps out of nowhere are only _pretty freaking cool_ until the screaming starts.

“Oh shit!” The words leave her throat faster than she can stop them as two of the goons get grilled by the fiery blast launched at their chests. Initial grunts of pain turn into fearful wailing as the flame spreads up their bodies, licking away clothing and hair as soon as it makes contact. The other goon drops his gun, cursing a wild streak and watching in horror as his compatriots fall to the pavement, curling up in faltering attempts to put out the blaze.

The man at the wall just watches.

An agonizing moment passes. Silence, though brief, falls. The flames begin to dissipate after a minute or two, no longer consuming the men with such a vicious appetite. But by the time either she or the last goon moves, Beau realizes that the pair on the ground are probably never going to move again.

The last goon staggers farther from the smoldering mess of corpses, catching Beau in his horrified stare before flying past her with a hundred more curses trailing behind.

Cursing seems incredibly appropriate at a time like this.

“Wh... what the fuck?” It feels like someone’s jammed a brick down her throat for how hard it is to speak, to swallow, even to breathe. She’d gotten close enough to the action before the fire materialized that she can now smell the acrid, smoky, not-right scent of something she’d never thought she would have to smell before today.

(She’s never watched somebody die like this before. She’s had rescues go wrong, and has beaten up ne’er-do-wells so badly that they seem almost dead, but she’s always been good about making sure help gets there whenever life-threatening things happen. It’s not like she’s scared of danger or death, but this... this is a lot to take in.)

For some nonsensical reason, her numb, shell-shocked brain decides she needs to get closer. And somehow, with nothing more useful to suggest, she goes along with it.

It occurs to her that she could be the next menu item on this back alley barbecue, but she watches the once-victim carefully as she approaches. He doesn’t move. He lets her take her time trying not to look too closely at the bodies, lets her size up his young, scruffy face and shabby clothes and knotted hair the color of a kinder fire. He does nothing but breathe heavily, trembling in place, watching with haunted blue eyes the lingering trails of smoke rise into the air. 

“H-Hey,” she tries. No answer. “ _Hey._ Are you okay?”

She really isn’t sure why she’s asking him that, considering he’s the one who just annihilated two armed men with some impossibly vicious fire-wielding power. But she’s not a complete moron. People aren’t really her thing, but she thinks she can spot earth-shattering shock when she sees it.

Next on her list of stupid impulsive actions, she wanders into the blast radius and kicks the untouched foot of one of the goons. Everything above their torsos is a mess of red-black skin and fabric. The evening’s breeze blows a great big lungful of that disgusting burnt smell straight up her nose, turning her stomach.

“Were they—” she chokes, “were they trying to rob you or something?”

Nothing. The man— kid, he barely qualifies as a man, he can’t be much older than her— looks like his brain hopped the first train to somewhere other than here.

The far-off whine of a siren starts trickling into Beau’s ears. Instinct tells her to run, and she’s long since learned that instinct is more than useful for keeping oneself out of prison. It’s not like she’s about to get pulled in for questioning— and have her identity blown— for a couple deaths that she had literally nothing to do with. So she veers, shifting weight onto her left foot to start a sprint.

And then.

She veers back to the right.

“Hey,” she hisses.

 _Whatthefuckareyoudoingareyounutsgetoutofhere,_ panics her head-voice.

“Hey, buddy!” Unsurprisingly, the kid still doesn’t react. Beau’s fear seems to take a back seat for just as much time as it takes for her to step forward and briskly slap his bristled cheek. His face sways with the movement, but his eyes are locked onto the dead men. “Look, man, I dunno what the shit just happened, but you need to snap out of it. Cops are gonna be here, like, any minute.”

Normally, her first action would _not_ be advising a criminal to run— because even if this guy was on the straight and narrow before all this, he just fucking _murdered_ some people, and that’s not some simple act of defiance like slashing tires or ripping off convenient stores. Cops would be useful here, even if this is simply a case of self-defense. But this is hardly normal. People with supernatural abilities don’t just _happen_ every day— well, not like this, anyway. She’s met low-level telepaths and hustlers who can talk you into doing anything, but she’s never met someone who can throw fire out of thin air. And she knows this kid is going to get put through some pretty intense scrutiny for what he’s done— and how he’s done it.

Beau hates scrutiny.

“Phew. Okay. God, this is stupid.”

The kid is still unresponsive, so she does the only thing that seems to be rattling around her vacant brain right now: gingerly maneuvering him onto her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He doesn’t seem to resist, but for caution’s sake, she wheezes, “Please don’t set us both on fire, okay?”

Choosing to take his silence as a resounding agreement, Beau runs.

-

_It’s just like the last time._

_(The first time.)_

_The anticipation, followed by emptiness. The burn, followed by numbness. The strength, followed by weakness._

_Fear and hate. Gott, so much fear and hate._

_Voices from the present invading a loop of the immediate past._

_Unwanted contact._

_It’s just like the last time... but it’s different._

-

Getting to her apartment doesn’t take as long as Beau expects, though it doesn’t make the journey feel anything less like forever.

(She managed about three quarters of a mile with the kid over her shoulder before every cell of her body started protesting— either on account of the physical exertion, or the realization that this was literally the most conspicuous way to travel, even if she was taking the most out-of-the-way route she could. Giving up behind a tiny hardware store, she planted the kid on his feet with a groan, half expecting him to fall over. But he stayed upright with only a hint of swaying, and his eyes finally seemed to have broken out of that vacant stare.

“Damn, you’re heavier than you look,” Beau whined, rolling the shoulder that had done all the load-bearing. “You’re gonna have to walk, man. Think you can do that?”

There was a lot of squinting, a lot of sizing her up, and a lot of useless gaping from the kid’s end before she added, “Or you can just stay here and wait ‘til somebody finds you, doesn’t matter to me.” Which admittedly seemed like the most transparent lie in all of modern history, because obviously it mattered enough to her that she was putting her own reputation at risk to rescue a possible psychopath from a sketchy crime scene. And that begged the question: why _did_ this matter to her, exactly?

But the kid managed the smallest of nods and a shuffling step, as if the previous question had only just registered in his stunned brain. From there, she grabbed his wrist and didn’t bother asking anything else from him or her subconscious motives.)

As soon as she locks the door behind them both, it hits her.

_What now?_

Clearly, she didn’t just go sneaking through the city putting her own head at risk for nothing. She didn’t just go through the heart attack of trying to smuggle a stranger into her apartment for funsies (while carrying her balled up, inside out crime-busting jacket, no less, which ought to be stored in the lockbox she keeps tucked away in the shared garage and _not_ in her apartment where it can be seen by just anyone.) But she’s treating this like such an effortless thing, like bringing home a stray pet or a little bit of stolen mail. And now she’s stuck with a very dangerous arsonist and no context. What’s the plan here?

A word pops into her head as she pulls out a stool from in front of the kitchen island, a word that makes her frown. _Compassion?_

“Sit,” she grunts.

The kid stands before the door, not having moved an inch since she let go of his wrist. His vibrant eyes stop surveying the apartment and begin to flick between her face and the stool, but he stays put.

“Or don’t. Whatever.” She hates the idea of turning her back on him, but it’s the only way to search the refrigerator for something to drink. “You want something?” she calls out over her shoulder, browsing the same old selection. Water. Gatorade. A six pack’s worth of beer secretly dispersed behind other objects. (Probably not a good idea to offer the crazy fire guy anything with booze in it.) She grabs a Gatorade for herself and a bottle of water for the kid; water’s a good defense against fire, right?

When she turns back around, she finds the kid sitting on the stool. She lifts a skeptical brow at him, but approaches all the same, sliding the water bottle his way. It skids on the dry surface of the island and topples softly in front of him.

Silence hangs between them for a sliver of time before Beau rolls her eyes and plants a hand on the island.

“Okay, look— can you talk or not? Like, are you mute or something?” _No, idiot, he’s not mute,_ her inner voice chides, memories of a faint voice pleading with a group of thugs coming to the forefront of her mind. But he doesn’t need to know that she knows. “‘Cos if so, sorry, I don’t mean to be a jerk, but this is just ridiculous.”

The kid casts his eyes to the floor, frowning.

A moment passes.

“Yes. I can speak.”

Beau straightens. “Okay. Then can you please use words?”

A flush of emotion— embarrassment, or else frustration— brings out the pink in his cheeks. 

“Thank you for the water,” he murmurs, and she picks up on a distinct accent that colors the words more like _sank you for teh woder._ She realizes that he might not be comfortable with speaking English, and remembers that he’s been through a shocking event, and _wow I’m such an asshole._ “I don’t need it now, but I appreciate it.”

Hoping her guilt doesn’t make her cheeks half as bright as his, Beau joins him in staring at the floor and gives a terse “You’re welcome” before opening the bottle in her hand and chugging enough of the cold sports drink until she can think of something more useful to say. (There’s a reason why she’s not a very public relations-oriented vigilante. But speaking of vigilantism...) “Look, we don’t have to talk about what happened back there right now, although I would like answers at some point. But I did you a favor. So you can do me a favor and not tell anyone who I am. The fact that you’ve seen me without my hood is already way farther than anyone else has gotten— which only means that I’m sticking my neck out super far for you, and you’d damn well better keep my trust, okay?”

“Okay,” he responds, picking at a corner of gauze that’s wrapped around his wrists. Then, with a meek upward glance that barely meets her eyes: “Who exactly are you?”

_Oh._

Admittedly, that’s disappointing. Yes, the whole point is to be a discreet activist— but maybe not so discreet that she can’t be recognized on sight? If she wanted to be forgettable, she’d just run around with a ski mask and sweats every day. But her crime-fighting gear has been deliberately picked for a coolness factor, a strike-fear-into-the-hearts-of-evil factor. And being asked _who are you?_ just feels like a wet blanket moment.

“That’s... not important,” she says. “Just... I may do this sort of thing a lot and I don’t want to have anybody know it’s me who’s doing it. Make sense?”

He bites his lip and nods. “So... you take people off the street often?” The lilt of confusion is strong even in his mild tone.

“No!” Actually, the only people she’s ever taken into her apartment have been a few girls for a good night— and an injured owl, before she was informed that keeping owls as pets was illegal in the States (and the owl also flew away. Still bummed about that one.) But owls didn’t really count as people, so yeah, just a few one night stands. “No, like... running around, restoring justice to the streets and helping the widows and orphans and all that crap.” 

“Ah.” He seems to consider that before shifting in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “Can I, um, can I go now?” 

Beau tenses, not with the tension before a fight, but the tension of misgivings. “Why? You gonna set me on fire too if I make you stay?”

His face goes cold. “...Do you need me to stay?”

“Maybe. I need to know, before I let you back out into the world, if you’re good people.”

“And if I am not ‘good people’?”

If he’s not, than she really can’t throw stones. She’s got her own history of hurting people, even if it never went so far as killing (which itself just seems inevitable in this line of work, and she doesn’t like to think about it.) She’s been a thief and a liar and a home-wrecker and an absolute stain on society. She’s even proud about some of those deeds. But she’s also trying to be _better._

“Then it all depends on how much you’re bad people.”

-

_She’s strange, this one. Loud, grating, more than mildly offensive. So rough around the edges._

_Straightforward._

_Straightforward is good._

_But staying here... that’s less good._

-

“So. What’s your name?” 

They’ve shifted to the little sitting room at the back of the apartment, the beginnings of streetlight glow creeping through the window that oversees the tiny scrap of grass all the apartment’s tenants can call a backyard. The kid is sitting on her futon, coat still bundled tightly around his person, currently shoeless— because if he manages to leave dirt stains in the carpet with his muddy-ass boots, she will beat the cash out of him to get it professionally cleaned. (The landlord is a fan of responsibility.) He looks up at her, a little bit of streetlight and newfound life in his eyes.

“Um... my name is Caleb Widogast.”

“Nice to meet you, Caleb.”

“...And yours is?”

“Well, now, that’s a secret.”

Caleb frowns. “But I just told you mine.”

“Yeah, and you’re not fighting crime under a secret identity.” Beau leans forward, giving him The Eye. “Or are you?”

The tiniest smile tilts his lips. It looks... sad. “No, I am not a hero like you.”

Beau scoffs, “Who said I was a hero?”

“...You did?”

She flexes her arms in their crossed position, trying not to think too hard about semantics. “I said I fight crime. That doesn’t make me a hero.” _Beauregard_ and _hero_ aren’t synonyms, and they probably never will be.

“Oh.” Caleb laces together his hands — which, Beau can now see, have since lost any semblance of char on them. Only a bit of pink blotches, like brand new skin, peeks out from the edges of his palms. “Why were you in that alleyway?”

“I saw something that looked like the start of a scuffle from across the street. I thought I would help, but... well, we see where that all went. What did those guys want, anyway? And am I right in assuming they were huge dickheads?”

It seems like Caleb can no longer muster the courage to look at her, instead taking to one of those long, hollow stares at the wall beside her. 

“I... guess I interrupted them in the middle of something. I don’t know what. But I would think it was something shady.” A lackluster shrug brings his slender shoulders into motion. “The pistols and the knife seemed a giveaway.”

That’s something Beau can agree on, especially with her established knowledge of back alleys being bullshit and good for nothing but bad stuff. But that brings up another good question. “And why were you there?”

“I was looking for things.”

“Such as...?”

“Anything useful. Anything thrown out. Scrap, food. Something to sell.” 

A dumpster rat. Well, it makes sense with his shabby looks, though it isn’t fair to judge by appearances; but she already figured he looks like a hobo. (Damn it, she feels really bad for him now.)

Of course, all of this could be a lie. He could be a hero, or he could be a villain, or he could just be some average guy with the crazy exception of being able to set things on fire with his hands. But there are plenty more questions to ask, and Beau’s never been shy with investigating. It’s her job to stick her nose into people’s business and ask questions (though not always so bluntly.) She’s more than ready to keep pressing until she feels confident she doesn’t have to figure out a way to drop Caleb off at the police station to keep him from setting any more people ablaze.

“Do you... plan on telling anyone about this?” Beau doesn’t expect the sudden intensity of Caleb’s baby blues staring her down again. “You know. What happened. What I did.”

“‘Anyone’ meaning the cops?” she returns. “I’ll be honest with you, Caleb. There’s no way I can really be sure that there wasn’t something else going on in that alley. It’s not every day I see somebody with your... gift. I mean, it looked like they were the ones trying to hurt you first, but I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t want to see that happen to anyone else.”

-

_She may not be a hero, but she is good._

_She also asks too much— asks for proof and trust from someone who cannot give either of those things._

_She is looking for justice. He is running from one sort of “justice” while searching for his own. He can’t let anyone know what he is and what he has done until he’s made it right._

_He needs backup._

-

There’s one big, risky question— related, technically, though not vital— that keeps dancing on the tip of her tongue. Beau may be agile, but she’s not well versed in dance, and the question pirouettes into the open air of its own will before her brain can catch up.

“Are you a Myth?”

Caleb blinks at her, confused. “Sorry, a what?”

“No, nothing— forget it.”

“I don’t think I heard you correctly. A _what?”_

Beau rolls her eyes. He’s already answered her question by not understanding. She almost wishes he’d say yes, but that was a pipe dream. “It was nothing. No, I was asking if you were _miffed._ Like, if you’re pissed off that I’m keeping you here.” 

“Ah... no. Not particularly. Although I would like to leave, but you seem to not want me to. And I am not so comfortable with the idea of what you might do if you decide you don’t like me.”

A sigh trickles out of her lungs. “It’s got nothing to do with liking you. I don’t even freaking know you, but you don’t seem like a raging axe murderer or anything, so that’s a nice start. But like... of course you’d be miffed. I’d be miffed too if some crazy bitch put me under house arrest in not my own house. Anyways. It’s late, and I dunno about you but I’m exhausted.”

Caleb furrows his brows, considers that for a moment. “It’s only nine thirty,” he says. 

“Yeah, but I also get up at five AM to get a run in every morning— and, if you recall, I was running around the city streets with some extra weight resistance tonight. I’m gonna need extra shut-eye.”

“So... you are going to bed just like that?”

“Well, I’ve gotta get you settled first, but yeah.” Beau waves a hand at him while she turns toward her bedroom. “C‘mon. You can take the futon, and I’ve got an extra blanket.” 

Even from a distance, the sour expression on Caleb’s face is almost strong enough for her to want to knock it clean off when she turns and sees it. “You expect me to stay here all night?”

“Would you like a cozy prison cell instead?”

“No, I wouldn’t. But what do you think is stopping me from running away while you sleep?”

She grins as she moves around, gathering supplies. “I’m not a heavy sleeper.” (That much is... debatable, but she knows how to dash right into action if she needs to.) “If you try even opening that door, I _will_ hear you. And I’ll take that as an admission of guilt, that you’re not a very good person, and I’ll get your ass thrown in jail so quick you won’t even be able to blink.” Exiting her room, she throws a blanket at him. It falls on him with a quiet _flump,_ draping his head and most of his torso in purple fleece. “You’re welcome to whatever food or drink you need. And a comb, if you want, because— no offense, dude, but your hair is sort of a disaster.”

Maybe it’s a sigh or maybe it’s a laugh, but either way, the noise that comes out of him is pure exasperation. “First you kidnap me into your home, then you insult my looks?”

She makes a face. “I said ‘no offense,’ right?”

-

_You | 10:21 PM  
I need your help._

_V | 10:21 PM  
what’s going on?  
I’ve been worried sick!  
did you not see my last 5 messages  
and 2 calls?  
you’re supposed to REPLY to these things_

_You | 10:23 PM  
I’m sorry.  
A crazy woman has me at her apartment.  
Before you say anything, I’m okay, but I need your help getting out._

_V | 10:24 PM  
I feel like there’s a whole story behind this  
do you know where you are?_

_You | 10:24 PM  
I can give you directions._

_V | 10:25 PM  
shit  
okay hang tight  
tell me everything you know_


	2. Chapter 2

Beau wakes up with the most ridiculous dream lingering on the edge of her consciousness.

It goes something like this.

Her suspicions come true, the sound of an opening door stirring her awake. She bolts upright in bed, tries her best to slip out silently so that she can catch her quarry before he causes any chaos in the apartment complex. She creeps out from her room, hands raised in patient defense, just in case he tries to fight instead of run. (She hates to think what paying off the security deposit would look like if the whole building burned down.)

She sees Caleb in the splash of city light that barely illuminates the space between the front room and the kitchen; he sees her immediately and freezes, fear heavy on his face.

“Yo,” she hisses, sleep trying to keep the words tamped down in her throat. “The fuck are you doing?”

He sputters something quietly, and all at once a vague blur of motion catches her eye. From beside her, a small figure with sharp teeth and green skin and long ears like knife blades comes barreling at her with a pillow from the futon and leaps, impossibly nimble, at her.

Beau yelps. All her training can’t prevail over the element of surprise. Whatever weird creature her subconscious has dreamed up manages to reach around her back and hold the pillow up to her face, slowly but effectively blocking the air from her lungs. Everything goes dizzy and blacker than it’s already been, and the dream ends with her crumpling to the floor.

_What a stupid dream!_

Good thing it was a dream, too. She’d never be able to look herself in the eye after being caught off guard by a tiny goblin in her own apartment.

She rubs her head, aware of a pressing headache in the front of her skull, and slowly eases into a sitting position. It’s… oddly bright inside for 5 AM. As soon as she can be bothered to move another muscle, she reaches for her phone on the bedside table.

6:32

 _Damn it._ It’s all Caleb’s fault. If he hadn’t gone and incinerated some dudes, she wouldn’t have had such a weird night and gotten all worked up.

(That’s still a problem, of course: figuring out what to do with him. There really isn’t any way of guaranteeing this kid tells the truth, short of working him over. This sort of information is important, and she won’t put physical intimidation off the tactics list, but she also feels a bit horrible inside every time she imagines throwing a punch at Caleb. Maybe it’s the fear of him fighting back with fire… maybe it’s still the memory of his reaction after the fire left his hands. All she knows is she feels vibes pouring off of him, vibes that she can’t figure out just yet.)

But speaking of Caleb…

One leg swings over the other in a twist of bed sheets and she stands, plodding out of her room and scanning the mostly-lit apartment for any sign of the ginger disaster. _Futon: no. Bathroom: no. Kitchen: oh no—_

_He’s not here, is he?_

“Caleb?” she tries tentatively, not bothering to keep anger from tangling with her tone. “Fuck!”

The only sign that the kid was even here in the first place are the things of hers that he left behind: the blanket on the futon, spilled over the side, and the now half-empty water bottle on the kitchen island. Some of her other belongings look a little jostled— but at least nothing seems to have been taken. _Yet._

“Okay. So he ditched.” Which makes her wonder about the validity of that “dream”— and, come to think of it, she does feel extra sore all over, as if something heavy was wrapped around her recently. There’s so much more to this story, she knows it, and more than just a kid who happens to wield fire (which itself is already an enigma). But it’s a story he clearly doesn’t want to tell. “I guess I can’t blame him.”

But she can blame herself. If he ends up back on the streets, killing more people…

She runs a hand through her hair and sighs.

_It’s time to get serious._

-

_He feels bad for what they did._

_This girl might be crazy, but he understands why she would want to keep him locked up. Yet he doesn’t understand why she took him away from the alley, from his mistake, from the advancing threat of police presence._

_Veth tells him running away from this girl was for the best._

_Maybe so._

_But he doesn’t like leaving any unknown variables._

-

By the time Beau is vaguely presentable and fueled up for the day, it’s just after seven o’clock— more than late enough for her to start the first leg of her investigation right here in the apartment complex. She glides downstairs to the first floor and raps her knuckles against the door labeled _OFFICE._

“Just a minute!” a deep, pleasant voice lows from the other side.

Mr. Clay is surprisingly prompt to answer the door. The morning light floods in from behind him, tracing an illuminated aura around his tall frame. He offers up a relaxed smile and gestures with a steaming cup of tea in his hand. 

“Ah, Miss Beau. Good morning. What can I help you with?”

“Hey, Ducey— morning,” she returns, trying her best for a pleasant grin despite the concerning circumstances weighing on her mind. “Uh, just came to drop off the rent.” She proffers a cash-laden envelope, which the landlord takes with a grateful nod.

“Why, thank you. That’s… very direct. You know, the drop-off box is still working.”

“Yeah— yeah, of course, I knew that. I just— wanted to say hi. Um…” It’s really hard to be less than forthright with Mr. Clay. Maybe it’s because he’s such a genuine guy, and disappointing him sort of feels like disappointing your kindly old grandparents or a large puppy. “Say, you didn’t… y’know… _hear_ anything last night?”

Mr. Clay hums thoughtfully, staring off at the corner of the hall. “Did I hear anything? Well, nothing too out of the usual, I don’t think. I heard a little bit of thumping and two people walking around, maybe one or two o’clock. But overall it wasn’t too disruptive, so don’t worry, I won’t ask for explanation.”

Heat presses up against her cheeks. She recognizes this tone and this sort of conversation between the two of them. If her landlord thinks she was just having a night rolling in the hay, so be it. But it brings something interesting to her attention: _two people walking around._ Inferring that the thumping might have been her body hitting the ground after being snuffed out by a surprise figure, that means that Caleb had someone from the outside helping him escape. Somebody who could make her think she was being attacked by a green gremlin, apparently.

This just got more interesting.

“Thanks, Caduceus. You’re a real pal,” she says with an over-pronounced wink.

Mr. Clay just smiles awkwardly, scratching underneath his pastel pink wave of hair. “Ah… yeah. Enjoy your day.” 

Right— the day where she has to figure out where a living matchstick might be hiding in a city full of people before he has the chance to cause a massive problem. 

It’ll be great.

-

_“What the hell happened last night, anyway?”_

_“I… got into a fight, of sorts. I was just looking for things to pawn off and these… hooligans, gang members, I don’t know… they saw me, I saw them. They stuffed money and things into their pockets and pulled out weapons.”_

_“Did they hurt you?”_

_“Nein. Pushed me to the wall a little, but I am fine.”_

_“So what— the vigilante girl came to beat them up?”_

_“Sort of. Who is she, anyway?”_

_“Hell if I know. The papers have started talking, though. She goes around busting up crime. A do-gooder. She probably thought you were a criminal like them.”_

_“I_ am _a criminal.”_

_“But not like them. Apples and oranges.”_

-

Beau slips into the Archive, hoping she’s managed to make it here before any of the other staff. The public library above opens at nine, but the real meat and potatoes of the operation— the extremely private archives in the basement— don’t have any set opening hours.

It’s been an interesting gig, to say the least. Her dad made a deal with the families of the Cobalt Soul to put her to work for the Archive and “set her straight” after all the years of unbridled trouble she was able to cause by not holding a job. (It’s not her fault if her parents are so unreasonably rich and their credit cards so easy to steal.) In exchange for the staff teaching her things like discipline and fearing the wide reach of a secret society that’s been around for ages, she is to help them with their work: collecting information and keeping it safe for… reasons. Sometimes it means ridiculously grueling hours of surfing the internet for pointed news articles, rumors and hearsay; sometimes it means going out into the world and asking questions (and sometimes working undercover, which is always super freaking cool, no matter how much she resents being stuck with this weird internship.) It can even be occasionally useful in her vigilante pursuits.

But it’s definitely the perfect place of employment when one wants to find answers about weird stuff.

Thankfully, one of the big boss ladies gave her a keycard to the basement not long ago as a sign of trust— and responsibility. Now, she can slide in and out of the Archive without requiring an escort. For once, she welcomes the odd smells of old books and metal filing cabinets, and the ever-present hum of computer servers whirring away in the back. A flick of a switch brightens the whole space with fluorescent light—

And reveals a figure standing in one of the aisles of bookshelves, just barely visible through the spaces of missing books. They look up at her before they sigh a well-worn sigh.

_Ah, crap._

“Good morning, Beauregard,” Mr. Zeenoth drones. He’s apparently been searching through a book in the lowlight of the room, but now is squinting harshly at the radiance she’s cast through the space. He’s just about as happy to see her as she is him.

(She knows he thinks she doesn’t belong there, even though he was the first one to teach her about the Archive, information gathering, and the whole purpose of the Cobalt Soul. He accepted Mr. Lionett’s bribe to take Beau in and whip her into shape, but that hardly means he’s enjoyed the job. In fact, she’s done a lot to ensure that he hates it; but right now, they’re at an unsteady impasse.)

“Heyyyy, Zee,” she replies. She’s not thrilled to see the man, but maybe this can work in her favor. “Look at you, bright and early.”

“I wish it were less bright,” he says through a gritted smile. “But yes, there’s always work to do. You seem to be a bit early yourself.”

“Oh, y’know.” She swings her arm in a gesture of false enthusiasm. “Can’t wait to trudge through all those files today.”

A low, impatient hum exits his chest. “What do you want, Beauregard?”

“Me? Want something? Never.”

“Come on. Spit it out. I really am in the middle of something important and I’d like to get back to it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Beau takes a chair in front of one of the computer stations against the wall to her right. “Only because you asked so nicely,” she grunts, tapping her login credentials into the multiple layers of security on the desktop before her. “What do you know about fire-wielding?”

His voice sounds deflected, as if he’s looking back down into his book. “Not much. That’s a very unusual question from you.”

“I’m just curious,” she mumbles, starting a search for any recent news articles about unexpected arsons with murders attached in nearby towns. “Like, is that a Myth thing that you know of, or only something you can get with a science experiment?”

She can just _feel_ Mr. Zeenoth’s murderous glare on the back of her head. 

“Superpowers” aren’t exactly a new invention. Some people are born with their unusual abilities, rooted in bloodlines that extend through millennia, steeped in cultures that inspired the legends of early history. Everyone who means anything in the Order of the Cobalt Soul (yes, including Mr. Zeenoth) belongs to one of those many families. But the word _Myth_ is a tricky one, used tongue-in-cheek by those families to mock the superstitions of humans who would see them as _others_ or _less than_ or quite simply _dangerous._ For Beau, a human, to use it is an insult— kind of like using the n-word.

As insulting as Beau is accustomed to being, she truly has been trying to be better. But she works for the Cobalt Soul. They’re trying to make her whole life’s mission into keeping the truth about these ancient races safe from the public eye— to keep their reality hidden behind the veil of fantasy and legend, to explain strange occurrences away by pointing to modern science and all the “superhumans” it’s been creating since the turn of the previous century. Besides, her parents have been keeping the secret all their lives. Beau’s only connection to the ancient races is some great-great-great-aunt who no one still living has ever met, hence their family’s awareness of the Cobalt Soul; but even for that, she thinks she’s allowed to say _Myths._

“ _Well,_ ” Mr. Zeenoth grits, his voice growing louder as the sound of his footsteps starts in her direction. “There could be a possibility for either one. You need to be more specific.”

Specific is not what she wants to be. They probably have their suspicions, but no one at the Archives has ever let on to knowing about Beau’s side job. _Nobody_ is supposed to know that she’s the vigilante everyone’s been talking about lately. She can’t let just anyone know that she was witness to two deaths last night. Being a stupid kid with a criminal bent is one thing; aiding and abetting a (possible) murderer is a whole lot worse. However, if she doesn’t figure out something about Caleb, there’s no way she can cover her tracks, and her secret could very well go up in smoke along with his enemies.

“Okay. Say, for instance, somebody who can form a blast of fire with their hands— out of thin air— and shoot it at someone. Their hands burn up a bit but after a while, they regenerate the skin that got all crispy.”

“That’s incredibly specific,” Mr. Zeenoth says, peering over her shoulder, at which she throws her hands up in exasperation and unwittingly knocks him in the jaw. The man groans in complaint.

“Well, you said _more specific!_ ” she retorts.

“Oh, just… give me the damned keyboard, will you?” He reaches over her and starts typing at blazing speeds— _so_ rude!— bringing new articles up on the screen. “It sounds a bit like something that happened in the United Kingdom last year. There was a woman, a former Russian national, running around and lighting herself up like a human torch, causing havoc.”

That piques Beau’s interest a little more. Caleb’s got a very pronounced accent, though not Russian… German, she thinks, having caught a few words in his mumbling last night. It seems too good to be true to have a connection already, even if the Eastern European similarity is hardly a real clue.

“Do we know what she was, though?”

“She’s in prison, currently— and as far as anyone can tell, powerless. Which would bring me to think that she was not born with that ability.”

“Wait, she lost her powers? Can that even happen?”

“According to her, she had them ‘taken away’ by choice, whatever that means. But that’s all we know. Though the Russian government has been keen on trying to extradite her, even with her British citizenship in place, which always raises some questions.”

Beau catches on to her mentor’s meaning quickly. “Super-soldier testing.”

He nods, exiting out of the research he’s been reciting from. “No country ever wants to admit to it, but no one would be surprised if the Kremlin had something in the works. Ever since World War II ended, every major power seems to have gotten a piece of the prize when it comes to that kind of research.”

Stealing back control of the computer, Beau conjures up a few more buzzwords to try narrowing her field of investigation. “World War II, okay. The Nazis were doing all kinds of sciency shit in Germany back then, right?”

“They were leading up much of the testing, yes. Again, pretty much all the major powers, Axis or Allies, started tinkering.”

With a saccharine smile, Beau begins gently pushing Mr. Zeenoth back towards the bookshelves. “Cool— thanks for the input, Zee. I think I’ve got it from here. You’ve got all that really important work to get back to.”

He squints at her, clearly trusting no part of her independent research, but decides to leave her be.

(This might be a good day after all.)

-

_Shaking last night’s events out of his head is nigh impossible._

_In a way, that’s a good thing. For now, he has to lie low, wait until the dust settles before he tries anything else foolish. But the shock of memory, the painful grip of the past— of what he did, of what Ikithon_ made _him to do— renews the fire in his soul._

_He’s here for a reason, and he will see it through._

_Planning is easier on paper. He crosses the room, reaches into his tattered coat’s inside pocket, and…_

_Nothing?_

_Scheiße._

-

It’s amazing how genuine curiosity (and the fear of consequences) transforms what would otherwise be a normal day at the office into something productive. On most shifts, Beau can barely get a paragraph’s worth of dirt and data in a day’s efforts. But right now, after eight hours (has it really been eight hours?) and the exception of a lunch break between, she’s got something almost resembling half a life’s story on her mysterious fire-wielder.

She almost regrets it.

A lot of prodding into German news and some, well, less than public sources— never let it be said that secret societies don’t have their perks— led her down a few virtual paper trails pertaining to arson, but only one path felt strange enough to be worth noticing. Painted in a clinical, uninterested portrait were a military officer and his wife, dead by a house fire; then, as almost a side note, the mentally unstable son that caused their end, who was promptly sentenced guilty by reason of insanity. The son was kept at a psychiatric hospital for a few years and then, at some ambiguous time unknown to the news writers (pinned down to the precise minute by what few declassified hospital records she could scrape up), somehow managed to stage an escape out of his ward and into the world.

After that, finding anything useful to tie her mystery and their tragedy together seemed nearly impossible. In the end, it took several hours, but she found her thread in a Facebook page for a tiny school with the picture of a stiff-lipped fifteen year old on the honor role from seven years ago.

 _Bren Ermendrud,_ read the caption— the same name as the schizophrenic son. It wasn’t Caleb’s name, but even the transition from grade school to adulthood couldn’t disguise that the face was Caleb’s face.

So, her link was there. But, unsurprisingly, there was still nothing to confirm her science-experiment theory, or to imply that the arson was caused by anything more impressive than a match. She may find it yet, but there’s only so much digging she can do with a lack of clearance and clarity. It’s gotten to the point where she’s reaching too far for connections. _Maybe_ the lack of motive (being crazy isn’t sufficient for a complete motive, not in Beau’s opinion) means something more sinister was pulling the strings; _maybe_ the fact that the hospital waited weeks to announce that Bren had gone missing means they were hiding important details; _maybe_ the position the late Mr. Ermendrud held in the German military gave him connections to hypothetical super-soldier testing. But they’re just theories, not proof. If she’s going to act, she’s going to need _more_ than that. She can’t go off of opinions right now.

If she did go by opinions… honestly, she’d probably leave the kid the hell alone for a bit. He’s definitely got blood (or soot, as it were) on his hands. He’s a liar as well, proven by the contradiction between _Caleb_ and _Bren._ But he can’t be everything the stories say he is. Sure, he’s got issues, that’s obvious. Not just anyone is going to set their enemies on fire before zonking out for a good ten minutes. Yet as much as Beau is the least qualified person on the planet to diagnose mental conditions, she’s pretty sure a schizophrenic at the level the reporters and the hospital described wouldn’t be able to function so well that he could not only break out of a well-guarded psych ward (she saw the payroll for security: they were— and are still— completely loaded), but also leave the country undetected and find himself in the USA. That took brain cells. That took knowing more than a simple delusional firebug ever could. And if she doesn’t know _exactly_ who he is, she can’t possibly try to chase him without risking too much.

Today’s not the day, anyway. It’s taken her all of the morning and most of the afternoon just to find a reason to hunt him down (beyond the obvious), and none of the information she has presently will be of any help in finding where Caleb— Bren— whoever the hell he is— is currently holed up.

Besides, as pressing as this is, she’s still got a routine to follow. Just because a new face pops up in town doesn’t mean that she’s about to put aside busting up some old faces, too.

-

_“Go back? Why the fuck would you do that?”_

_“I can’t just leave it— I had to have dropped it in that girl’s apartment—”_

_“Are you sure? I mean, you didn’t even know it was missing until right now.”_

_“It’s— it hasn’t been my best couple of days. I was stupid, I wasn’t paying attention, I—”_

_“First of all, you are_ not _stupid. You’re stressed out, and that’s completely reasonable. But if you really think you left it there, let me go in and get it for you.”_

_“No. No, I won’t— I won’t let you put yourself at risk.”_

_“I’m much better at this sort of thing than you are, Caleb.”_

_“No! I just— it’s my fault, I have to get it myself!”_

_“Fine. But I’m coming with you.”_

_“No, you will not. You already do too much for me, you keep me in your home, you risk yourself and your family for me—”_

_“Yes. And I have a feeling you’d do the same for me if I needed it.”_

_“…Ja.”_

_“Then stop arguing and let me help.”_

-

A promise to stay a few hours later tomorrow to file old documents— literally the most tedious task invented by man, second only to maybe watching paint dry— gets Beau off the hook with Mr. Zeenoth, and she hurries back home with the first available bus. She’s got a rendezvous with some of her contacts on the streets tonight. From business owners to punk kids who run around doing graffiti, she’s got a wide array of look-outs around the city that are usually as helpful as the Archive’s database. If it takes a village to raise one child, it’s no wonder fighting crime is easier with the assistance of a few extra eyes and ears in every corner. But before she dons her gear and hits the town, she wants to clean up after last night’s events.

Honestly, it would have been smart to do inventory earlier. If nothing else, Caleb is definitely an opportunist, and opportunists make for good thieves. But a deeper investigation of the few spots of disarray in the apartment reveals that almost everything seems in order. The previously unopened mail on the kitchen counter has all been opened, and a few drawers in the sitting room cabinet were thrown into disarray; but as far as she knows, nothing is missing except her best comb. (Caleb needs it more than she does, so she’ll chalk that loss up without regret.)

In a way, he and his mystery accomplice did her a favor. By causing more of a mess than what her apartment usually sees, they’ve given her an excuse to clean up things she’s been putting off forever. She sorts her mail, throws a few things from the drawers into the trash, and snatches up the fleece blanket with all the intentions of taking it to the Laundromat over the weekend. 

Something at the end of the futon catches her eye as she removes the cascading blanket from the cushions. It’s a small book— dingy brown leather with a tie, almost like the notebook she keeps for jotting down details at work, but smaller and noticeably falling apart. She reaches for it, unwinding the tie and opening the book to its middle. Shaky, compressed handwriting litters the pages, a jumble of foreign words and foreign characters distributed throughout which, after a full day of copy-pasting news articles and classified records into a translator, she recognizes as German.

“Well, well,” she mumbles, thumbing mindlessly through the pages as if she could understand more than a stray word here or there. It’s amazing how someone clever enough to break out of confinement and smuggle himself into other countries could be so careless.

This is gold. This is a lottery jackpot. Even if it’s just a beat-up journal, journals are like the ascended form of written confessions. Maybe with this, she’ll find the information necessary to catch up with Caleb, to pin him down and—

And—

Well, then what?

It’s not very likely he’ll talk to her. And it’s not like she’ll just call the cops on him at a distance— for one, the local department isn’t even sort of prepared to capture and detain someone with elemental abilities, and for two, that feels cheap. Her hatred of authoritative scrutiny still stands true. It seems like the more dangerous the abled person, the less presumed innocence they’re afforded. 

(Rumors are rampant in times like these. Stories run wild about high security national prisons where even mere carjackers with signs of supernatural abilities are thrown into solitary and tested, provoked, subdued. It sounds inhumane, but with the right sort of arguments, sometimes it sounds _sensible._ And that’s terrifying.)

Beau doesn’t like not having a plan. But, for now, the idea of taking the leather book to work tomorrow and sneaking some translation time in between the mind-numbing labors of archiving is enough forward momentum to sate her.

For security’s sake, she holds onto Caleb’s book and tucks it into her clothes as she puts on the first stages of her vigilante gear, though she hates the idea of taking it with her. She could always leave it in the combination safe in the closet; all evidence and field research goes there at the end of the day, locked tight and obscured by boxes of sneakers and piles of extra blankets. But it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that Caleb might come back. If he and his friend can stage an escape and even make a little mess of her apartment with her in it— all without triggering the suspicions of the highly perceptive Mr. Clay in his downstairs room, to boot— it’s not smart to underestimate their hidden abilities.

At least tonight’s activity is just an information run. Trying to fight crime with a palm-sized leather book pinned against her spine would be such a pain. But even so, it’s worth it. She can’t let this lead go to waste.

-

_His steps follow the invisible thread between the Brenatto house and the hero-girl’s apartment perfectly— one of the benefits that contrast the horrors of an eidetic memory._

_If only that memory was enough. If only he didn’t have to write things down. If only he didn’t have emotions and schemes full to bursting that he needed to drain out of his head. If only, if only…_

_But it_ has _to be there. The journal has to be there._

_(He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it isn’t.)_


	3. Chapter 3

The whole evening feels like a distraction.

It’s an unusual feeling, and not one that Beau likes. She’s used to being distracted during the more mundane moments of existence, thinking about how much she wants to slip into her gear and skulk around the city and kick somebody’s teeth in. But she’s never been distracted during the vigilante gig. This has always been the highlight.

Now she can barely focus. She completely walks past Mr. Shakӓste’s wellness studio and has to sprint back four blocks upon realizing; she starts tripping over Twiggy’s cans of spray paint halfway through their rendezvous, making so much of a ruckus that the graffiti artist has to abandon her half-finished tag; she even nearly gets into a familiar conversation with Mr. Sol that would immediately pin her as Beau and not some cool, sneaky vigilante of mystery. 

(Okay, so it’s not like she’s _that_ good at disguising her voice or acting like an alias rather than herself. But her contacts have always been good about not putting two and two together, at least not out loud. As long as things stay that way, she doesn’t have to think too hard about it.)

The only one who points it out is Keg.

“You okay?” the girl from the fitness center asks. She’s the one person with whom these rendezvous aren’t one hundred percent vigilante business. She’s the type who’s been close enough to Beau to see the equations and do the math out loud, but she’s trustworthy. “You seem out of it.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Beau drones, absently rolling a small chunk of asphalt under her foot. “Just— a lot going on.”

“You… need to talk about it?”

“No. Well— maybe. I dunno.”

Keg smiles faintly. “I mean… I’m kinda shit for advice, but if you need an ear, I’ve got one.”

Once upon a time, that level of trust was way off limits for _anybody._ But Keg is one of the only people she’s told about her secret, and there’s still a piece of Beau that’s reserved for her. It seems kind of wasteful not to take this opportunity.

“So… if… you’re trying to help somebody, right? And there’s no reason why you should, but you feel sorry for them and you can tell that they’ve had a shitty hand dealt to them in life, whether it’s their fault or not. But helping them out means putting your own neck on the line, and you don’t even know this person well enough to say whether they’d be grateful for it or not. Like… what do you do in that situation?”

After a drag on her cigarette, Keg shrugs. “Personally? You know me. I’ve never been the most altruistic person out there. But you’re the one who goes out righting wrongs and everything. I think you’ve got a better answer for yourself than I ever would.”

Beau screws her face up into a frown. She hates being the one responsible for questions of morality. “Well, you’re no help.”

“Hey, I warned you, I’m shit for advice! I’m your sparring partner, not your damned therapist.”

“I definitely don’t want a therapist.”

“Then there you go!”

“Screw you.”

“Screw you too. See you Thursday?”

“Yeah, Thursday.”

-

_“Hi. Are you looking for Beau?”_

_A nosy young woman with blue hair and violet eyes is the last obstruction he could ever expect. They’ve been doing so well, sneaking into the complex unseen, but of course his luck can’t be that good. So close… here at the apartment door, so close to getting in, getting out…_

_He can’t be stopped. Not here, not now, so close…_

_“Um… yes. Yes, actually. We are friends of… Beau’s.”_

_“Hence why we’re at her apartment,” Veth says._

_“Oh, well she’s not home right now.” Is it curiosity or suspicion in those unnatural eyes? “Maybe come back later.”_

_Anxiety seizes his throat, the muscles clenching inside like a coiled snake trying to suffocate him._

_But Veth is ready._

_“We’ll just wait for her inside.” His friend holds up what he knows for a fact is a set of lock picks; but what he sees is an unassuming key between her fingers. “She gave us a spare in case we got here early.”_

_The nosy girl cocks her head._

_“Oh. Okay. Well, I’m sure she’ll be back soon! If you need anything, just let me know. I’m only four doors down that way.”_

_She skips (honestly_ skips _) away in the opposite direction, out of sight._

_Breath escapes his lungs._

_“You are incredible,” he mumbles._

_Veth goes back to working at the door with lock picks that look like lock picks._

_“Yeah, I am pretty cool.”_

-

A little bit of surveillance ties up the afternoon. It’s technically for work— there’s a torrid affair that the mayor is involved in, and while the Cobalt Soul has no plans on spilling the beans, it’s still worth having information in case it proves useful. Beau isn’t a fan of it, but she is a fan of getting paid and keeping the other Archivists off her case. 

There’s been no sighting of the mayor at her lover’s house, and quite frankly Beau’s starting to think there never will be. Just as she starts considering calling it for the night, the buzz of an incoming phone call feels like a sign. 

She wrenches her cellphone out of her bra, praying that it won’t be an unlisted number or a useless solicitor. Apparently, someone Upstairs is feeling generous: the caller is somebody she not only tolerates, but _likes._

“Hey, Jessie,” she answers softly, shifting back from the shrubbery she’s been sheltered in during her stakeout. “What’s shakin’?” 

_‘Hi Beauuuu!’_ Jester’s voice is about as exuberant as ever, even though she seems like she’s trying to stay quiet, too. _‘Um, so, just so you know, no huge concern or anything, but there’s some weirdo people hanging out by your apartment.’_

Beau stands up quickly (her back regrets it.) “Weirdo people? What kind of weirdo people?”

_‘Wellllll, I mean, they weren’t too weird, and they said they were friends of yours and had a spare key and everything, but— I don’t know, something just looks fishy about them. And the one guy was kinda stinky.’_

“Stinky?” That wasn’t something she’d particularly noticed about Caleb— if her instincts were right and the “weirdos” at her door were the firebug and his mystery cohort— but then again, all she remembers distinctly smelling last night was the leftover stench of burnt people. “Was one of them ginger and kinda shabby?”

_‘Yeah, that’s the stinky one. And there was a woman with him, with nice light brown hair and really pretty skin— like porcelain, kind of.’_

Okay. So Caleb came back for his journal, most likely, and he has backup. A plan of action would be smart right now, but plans take _time,_ and Beau can’t let him slip away again. If she hurries, takes as many hidden short cuts as she knows, maybe, just maybe she can get there before he loses patience and runs off. But how long have they been at her apartment? And how the hell do they have a “spare key”— did they make a pressing of her key in the middle of the night? Do they have a weird skeleton key? Or maybe there’s no key at all, and they have even shiftier methods of getting in—

_‘Hello, earth to Beau? Are you still there?’_

“Huh? Oh, yeah— yeah, I’m here. Just, uh, got distracted. They’re— they’re fine, I know them. They’re, ah, from work. I made them a spare just in case.”

 _‘In case of what? Isn’t Caduceus supposed to keep all the spare keys? Or are they some…_ special _friends, eh?’_

Beau slips from property to property, street to street, struggling to stay fully conscious of her surroundings while lying to her neighbor and planning for an upcoming confrontation. “It’s a long story and really not that interesting,” she responds, trying not to sound winded. “But thanks for calling me, I appreciate it. I’m on my way home, so if you see them leaving, just uh— stall for me, okay?” She winces. Involving civilians is not a smart move. Jester is a fully capable girl, but she’s more equipped for punching catcallers in the face than holding back a man with superpowers.

Yet true to form, Jester sounds thrilled. _‘Okay! I’ll keep them busy.’_

Hopefully, she won’t have to.

-

_Not here._

_Not there._

_Not anywhere._

_They’ve turned over every corner of this wretched apartment and yet it’s not, not, not not not notnotnotnot—_

_“It has to be here! It has to, it has to—”_

_“Don’t worry, we’ll find it. I still haven’t got the safe open yet. I’m almost there.”_

_He wonders if it’s not in the safe. (It has to be, verdammt! There are so few options left.) “If she has it, if she’s read it—”_

_“Do you think it might not even be here at all? Maybe you dropped it while you were in the alley or something.”_

_No, that’s worse. That’s so much worse. It has to be HERE. It has to be in plain sight and he has to be missing it._

_His fingers gnarl into his hair, reaching for a greater intelligence within his brain that seemingly can’t be plucked out, if it’s there at all._

_Dummkopf, Bren, du bist so ein dummkopf—_

_It’s then that Veth calls from the bedroom. “Got it! Safe’s open!”_

_And it’s then that the front door opens._

_(It’s then that his last thread of desperate hope is torn.)_

_The hero girl takes a long, slow step into the apartment and closes the door behind her._

-

Caleb’s appearance is anything but reassuring, to be honest.

His eyes are wide and wild; his chest is shifting to the rhythm of rushing breaths. His hands are tangled in his mop of red locks (which doesn’t look much neater— damned irresponsible comb thief— but she’d rather have his hands stuck in his hair than freely launching fireballs at her.) He’s muttering to himself in broken syllables that could be impossible to translate even if they’re English, yet the tone is readable enough. In all of this, he’s messier than her apartment, and that’s saying something— because her apartment is fucking _trashed._

Beau’s never been a master at talking down an enemy. And honestly, with the state of her living space, she’s more ready to kick ass than be diplomatic, but it’s best not to start a violent confrontation in a building full of her neighbors.

So she crams down every bit of anger and adrenaline to let words flow instead.

“Hey. ‘Sup?”

(Okay, not so much _flow_ like a steady, calming stream, and more like _spurt out like water from a kinked garden hose._ But she hasn’t started out throwing punches, and she feels that’s something to be proud of.)

Caleb stares with a look of haunted indecision on his face.

“Y’know,” Beau says, holding a hand up peaceably, “I thought you really wanted out of my apartment, but here you are again. The very next day, no less.”

In the way he bows his head and slants his shoulders, arms falling limply to his side, the kid gives off an eerie vibe. It could be a sign of deference, or it could be a precursor to lashing out, and Beau hates not knowing which is which.

“Where is it?” His voice is broken but driven.

“Where’s what?” she answers.

“You know,” he replies, and for a moment there’s an angry curve to his lips. “You know what I am looking for.”

“Do I?”

It’s the wrong answer, apparently. His fists clench and she tenses, waiting for the telltale char on his skin. Despite his hands turning a vivid pink, he doesn’t seem ready to let his frustration out in light of the consequences— yet, anyway. There’s no char, no swirl of flame in the air, so Beau stands her ground.

“Okay.” At this moment, rolling her eyes would break some tension, but she can’t afford to take her line of sight from him. “I might be an asshole but I do know how to be reasonable. Let’s just… cool down. We need to have a little talk. And— I don’t know where your friend is, but she might as well come out, too. I’m not a fan of surprises.”

His expression changes, just barely. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Ugh, c’mon, man. You’re not any better at playing dumb than I am.” Arms akimbo, she dares to take a few more steps into the apartment, angling in a way that she can pivot towards any of the three rooms that branch off. “Yo, I know you’re in here. Jig’s up.” She punctuates the challenge with a pair of claps.

Today is the day of _ask and you shall receive,_ it seems. It’s just… not what Beau was expecting.

For one, the woman who dashes out of the bedroom looks nothing like the porcelain beauty Jester described nor the surreal goblin creature that was before Beau’s sleep-hazed eyes last night. She’s a short thing with dark hair and tawny skin, hiding behind a white kerchief printed with an unsettling doll-faced smile.

And for two, she has a gun.

“Put your fucking hands up!” the woman hisses, waving the pistol up in the general (and generally upsetting) direction of Beau’s face. Her bearing proves that her nerve isn’t rock steady, but Beau isn’t willing to take any wild chances. “Don’t move!”

“Hey! Hey! Shit, don’t— look, my hands are up!” Beau eyes the woman carefully, throwing a few glances at Caleb with the intent of conveying _whatthehellmanyoupeoplearenuts._ “I just want to talk, okay?”

“No time for talking!” If glares were daggers, Beau would be bled out on the carpet right now from the sharpness of the woman’s dark expression. “Just give us the journal and we’re on our way.”

“Maybe it’s not that easy,” Beau hisses back. “And for the love of God, you just trashed my place, the least you could do is not point a fucking gun at me!”

Caleb’s voice breaks into the fray, back to desperation. “Just tell us where it is and we will go! You won’t see us ever again.”

“If she puts the gun down, maybe!”

“Veth…”

The woman flinches at the sound of what’s apparently her name. Her hands stay wrapped around the pistol’s grip. “I don’t trust her.”

“Neither do I,” Caleb says, his attention still fully on Beau. “But between the two of us, she knows we can keep her quiet if need be, _ja?_ She’s seen what I can do. And you are no slouch either, my friend.”

He’s got a point. Beau’s an expert at poking the bear, but most of the people she encounters on a daily basis are _normal._ Caleb can very easily murder her if he tries, and his friend obviously has some sort of skill set beyond the boundaries of an average human. (She’s probably just an illusionist, considering the evidence, but an illusionist with a gun is somehow way scarier than Beau ever would have thought prior to this very moment.) She wants to get as much as she can out of them, but she does _not_ want to push them past the breaking point.

Defying the adrenaline surging through her system, Beau forces her body into the most relaxed position it can find right now. “Look, at the very least, we can’t keep shouting at each other. The neighbors are going to hear, and then we’re all going to be in deep water.”

“Agreed,” Caleb concedes.

Veth lowers the gun, brows knit into a look of skepticism. It’s only once the immediate danger is in check that Beau notices the woman can hardly keep her hands from trembling. “All right. But no funny business!”

Whatever response Beau is about to conjure gets cut off immediately by Caleb, whose intensity, oddly enough, only grows. “What do you want from us? From me?”

There’s something in his tone that grates on her. “Okay, why do you say that like I was the one that dragged you back here?”

“You did exactly that, yesterday.”

“I brought you here because you were freaking catatonic!”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, man, it’s your reaction, not mine!”

“No,” he scowls, now resorting to just side-eyeing her. “Why did you bring me here then, instead of leaving me be? Why did you… what do you want from me?”

The question sits heavy with her, and she wants nothing more than to just brush it off, to tell him that she wants absolutely nothing from him and is merely doing her duty as a crime-fighter (and Archivist)— which is true, of course. But it’s also a half-truth. The other half of the truth is messy and soul-searching and, honestly, really selfish. But Caleb— Bren— whatever his story is, he’s been through a lot. And through the people she’s helped around town, both as a vigilante and a member of the Cobalt Soul, and the amazing neighbors she’s spent the last year and a half getting to know, she’s starting to learn that sometimes being good to people feels better than just being good to yourself.

“I’m a vigilante,” she answers slowly, the words thick on her tongue. “I… I wanted to help.”

“But there was no fight for you. You could have walked away.”

“I know. But you still needed help.”

The creases in his expression deepen for only a split second, before he tries to show some neutrality of emotion. “…I would have been all right.”

She doubts that. But that doesn’t seem to be his point, and they both know it.

“Wait.” Quiet and pensive, Veth interrupts. It’s a one-eighty from her previous reactions. “Caleb, she… what does she mean, ‘catatonic’? What happened last night? I thought she just up and kidnapped you.”

Huh. It seems like Caleb keeps secrets universally, even with his apparent friend. Beau throws him a Look before giving Veth her attention. “Did he explain anything to you?”

The woman doesn’t seem very trusting of any direct conversation with Beau, but she relents. “He said that he got cornered by some rough characters, and you intervened.”

“Well… ‘intervened’ is a strong term for a whole lot of nothing. He did a pretty good job standing up for himself.”

Veth straightens with… pride? “Of course he did. He’s very clever. A little squishy, but very clever.”

The statement apparently throws Caleb for a loop; he blushes ever so faintly as his mouth wags open, devoid of sound. Beau decides to take the opportunity of silence to finally say what needs to be said.

“Yeah… I can tell.” She turns to the embarrassed arsonist and lets out on a heavy exhale: “Look, the point is… you seemed totally lost and freaked out, and… I figured I could at least get you somewhere where you could sort yourself out. I’m… not the greatest of people sometimes. Most of the time. I’ve got a history of being an asshole, and I’ve come to realize that being an asshole really isn’t all that fulfilling. I’m trying to make up for that, and I guess if I could have helped you even a little bit, give you a chance to explain yourself, then I’d feel like maybe I did something good. So I didn’t do it because I wanted anything from you. I just wanted something from myself.

“But, also, you did something really— impressive. And scary. And in trying to do a good thing, I had to make sure that what I did was for the greater good, and not just yours. I’m not a hero, and I’m not trying to be, but it’s a part of who I am to make sure I know the who and why and that I’m not screwing good people over when I intervene in stuff.

“I have your journal.”

She puts a hand up to ease the suspicions of the two people in front of her, and reaches with the other hand for the leather book still strapped at her back. When its tattered form comes out into the open, Caleb’s eyes visibly widen.

“I haven’t read it. I saw inside, but I can’t read German, so whatever’s in there is still a mystery to me. And I’m willing to give it back. I’ll even tell you why it’s so important for me to ask so many questions.” Another deep breath fills her lungs, making the nervous ache in her chest that much more pressing. “But, in exchange, I need you to tell me the absolute truth about what happened in Germany four years ago.”

-

_“I need you to tell me the absolute truth about what happened in Germany four years ago.”_

_The words are like daggers of ice in his head, sending spikes of frost that bring his thoughts to a frozen standstill._

_Germany._

_(Home.)_

_Four years ago._

_(Forever ago.)_

_The truth._

_(A death sentence.)_

_He wants to run. That’s the natural course, to run. To hide. To trust no one. (Veth doesn’t even know the truth of why he runs. Lets him live in her house with her precious family for months and she doesn’t. even. know.)_

_He wants it all to go away._

_And yet, this is the ultimatum. Killing someone will not be an option today. (It should have never been an option. The ends justify the means, but killing takes so much.) But if he runs again, he will be hunted in this country, too. His journal could be lost again, and the truth may be told anyway._

_He can’t start from scratch again. (This time with Veth has been a boon, an undeserved blessing.) He can’t be a runner forever. The secrets have been destroying him for years, and progress is slow. He has to make an end of this somehow, before the silence swallows him whole for the last time and the truth is left alone to liars._

_He has to start making amends._

-

To Beau’s surprise, Caleb doesn’t ask how she knows. He doesn’t lash out in anger. He doesn’t try to cover it up. He merely stands there, face blank and lifeless like it was the night before; but his eyes are alert this time, wide as they’ve ever been, with a dimension of thought behind them.

“This… stays between us,” he whispers, looking at the floor behind Beau. “Neither of you can speak of this to anyone.” His gaze flickers up to her face, then to Veth. “Do you promise me? Will you keep this safe?”

“Of course,” Veth responds, stepping close to him, placing her hand on his arm. “Whatever you need. You can tell me anything.”

Even though she knows Caleb isn’t looking, Beau nods. She knows this could be a promise she regrets, but she knows what it’s like to have dangerous secrets about oneself. She isn’t prepared to be the person who breaks his confidence. She isn’t prepared for that guilt. “You have my word, too. Whatever you say stays here.”

“Okay,” he says, and nods. “Okay… okay.”

The next breath stays in his chest for impossibly long, but when the words finally come, they come out as easy as the air itself.

“Four years ago, in Germany… I killed my parents.”

-

_It was supposed to be good, all of it._

_It was supposed to be good when Vater told him about the Cerberus Project. Vater knew some of the men involved— military men who were clever, clever like he was clever but with so much more experience and a love for forbidden sciences. And he liked the idea, at least the way Vater presented it. It was a chance to learn with other bright young minds. A chance to help mankind be_ more.

_It was supposed to be good when the tests started, even though there was more errand running and less learning. Some of the scientists and consultants were not patient with his lack of experience and his constant questioning, but he earned his lessons all the same. Herr Ikithon was the most generous out of them all. The foreign man seemed almost delighted to foster a young genius in the study of genetic engineering._

_It was supposed to be good when Herr Ikithon volunteered him to be not just a student, but a test subject. Someone with such promising young intellect from a military family, said Ikithon, would surely be an ideal model for a superhuman protector of this country— of any country. Never mind his misgivings, or Vater and Mutter’s misgivings— this was for the best. His fellow interns were going through with it. And surely, the discomfort of needles and hospital gurneys and endless diagnostics would be worth the glory of being something_ more.

_It was supposed to be good when the fevers came, when the aching racked his body, when the migraines battered his skull like hammers. Pain meant change. Every needle, every drip, every blood draw, every single thing that went in or came out of him was for the good of progress. Change would come._

_It was supposed to be good when change came— when something new tickled his brain, when the heat in his veins started to interact with the heat in the air, when suddenly his hands started tingling and the skin on his fingers turned dead and black while the air before him turned orange with flame. Herr Ikithon assured him, whenever there was a break in his screaming, when his hands started healing, that this was a gift. (In his opinion, the opioids between “training sessions” were a better gift. They helped him not think.)_

_There was a day when Herr Ikithon brought him back home in the dead of night and told him to start a fire. The man never explained why this needed to be done, but everything else was supposed to be good, so wasn’t this, too?_

_But it took screams that weren’t his own for him to realize this wasn’t good._

_Nothing was._

-

“I… I’m sorry, Caleb. That’s… horrible.”

The words slide out of Beau’s throat like inevitable vomit— unpleasant to keep down, necessary to get out. The short, graphic tale that Caleb tells is so unexpected, yet in all ways seems so honest that she hates accepting it as true.

Veth doesn’t even speak. She simply takes her arms and encircles Caleb with them, and he lets her.

“This is why you can tell no one,” he stammers. He’s been speaking in rapid, broken sentences for minutes, and only now is he trying to stop from saying everything all in one constant stream. “I am guilty for what I have done, but they are doing things that no one is supposed to see. The Cerberus Project is a dark secret that they will keep at any cost. I have tried to keep a low profile, to hide. You must never speak of this to anyone, or else the both of you will be in very serious danger.”

“I understand,” Veth finally responds, in a tone surprisingly measured and motherly for someone who can’t be more than a few years Caleb’s senior. “Thank you for telling us. That was very brave.”

“You are the only people who know this.” His hands hold limply on Veth, allowing her comfort but not seeming to absorb it. “It’s reckless.” Regret wavers on his features before he chances eye contact with Beau. “I would like my book back now.”

She tries to clear the tightness out of her throat with a cough. _Right._ There’s no point in trying to milk anything else out of him. The journal changes hands without issue, though not without a little pause. Skin touches skin, and it makes her shiver.

“So that’s all you’ve been doing?” she asks. “Hiding?”

“ _Ja._ ”

“He’s safe, with me,” Veth interrupts, peeling away to stand by his side like a sentinel.

“Any… plans, beyond that?”

The pause that comes after is practically tangible, but all he returns with is, “No. There is nothing I can do, not now.”

 _But later_ is the subtext Beau picks up. This isn’t a man who gives up, clearly. He broke himself out of a guarded hospital (with help, according to his story, but it’s still an impressive feat.) He put himself at risk to come back for this journal. There’s got to be something in this world that he wants.

“That’s fair. But, uh…” She scratches her head. “Look, if you ever do need help with… well, with whatever. Let me know? I know we haven’t gotten off on the right foot, but I’ve got some skills.” The combined stares of Caleb and Veth are enough to make her pause, but she shakes them off and continues. “Like I said, I have a reason for asking questions. I’m pretty good at keeping an eye on people, protecting them. I work in secrets pretty much always.”

Veth raises an eyebrow. “That’s part of your ‘crime-fighting’ thing?”

“Yeah, something like that. But… if you need your tracks covered, I might be able to help— so long as you don’t run around burning people all the time. Uh… no offense.”

Caleb closes his eyes. “The best favor you can do for me is to forget you ever saw me, and to forget the words I just told you.”

Forgetting isn’t in Beau’s wheelhouse— not when it comes to rightfully held grudges. Maybe she has nothing to hate the Cerberus Project or this mysterious Mr. Ikithon for, but she knows shady, self-righteous dealings when she sees them. If working with the Cobalt Soul has taught her anything, the more that humanity pokes into matters of the unnatural, the more the world will fall out of balance. With unchecked power comes war and chaos— and anybody who takes a bunch of young people and jabs them with experimental drugs to try to turn them into unquestioning weapons obviously doesn’t mind war and chaos.

“Right. Well, anyway. Just— hang on a second.” 

It feels like an informal end to the confrontation as soon as Beau turns her back to the two. (It could still be lies. They could still murder her. This could be the worst decision in the world but she does it anyway.) She grabs a piece of junk mail from a tossed drawer in the kitchen and a ballpoint from the floor a few feet away, and scratches out the digits to her cell phone. She wanders back to Caleb and wags it in front of him.

“Here,” she says, daring him to take the paper. “Just in case. If anybody asks, these last two days didn’t happen. We’ll have each other’s secrets, and try to forget them together. But if there’s trouble, I might be able to help. And… who knows, you might be able to help me sometime. I could always use some friends with… talent. Deal?”

He considers the paper for a moment, frowning at her suggestion of mutual assistance, fingernails dug into his journal as she speaks. But there’s a sort of silent communication hiding behind his irises that tells her he understands the impasse they’ve created. They both have truths to hide; both have the ability to keep one another accountable. Even though their life stories may be worlds apart, they have a connection.

His hand reaches out, and grasps.

“Deal.”

-

_She’s strange. Loud, grating, more than mildly offensive. So rough around the edges. Straightforward._

_She may not be a hero, but she is good._

_She also doesn’t seem to understand that he is a walking curse._

_They are not allies. But they can at least both live confidently knowing that they are not heroes. They are_ doers, _whatever may come of that._

_(Understanding. It feels so good, finally, to have an understanding.)_

-

Caleb and Veth’s exit is an awkward one. Caleb apparently has already expended all the words he wanted to use, remaining silent throughout, saying little else after he stuffs his journal and Beau’s number into his inner coat pocket. Veth apologizes, which at points sounds a little backhanded; Beau is more than happy to reciprocate in kind, stumbling over her apologetics with a hint of blame. By the time they finally scoot their way into the outer hallway and out of sight, Beau is so exhausted by it all that she simply slips back in through the apartment’s threshold and leans on it from the inside, staring at the ceiling with a cockeyed glance and sealed lips.

It’s been such a weird two days— not even that, actually. In roughly twenty-four hours, she’s found, solved, and perpetuated a mystery. Being a vigilante has brought about some weird encounters, but not anything like this— and there may never be an encounter quite as peculiar as this one for the rest of her career.

_A young person with a secret; someone who struggles to communicate, running from an irreversible rift between themselves and their parents, hoping to forget the person they once were…_

Hmm. Maybe it’s not so peculiar after all.

“Beau!”

About three different profanities and two thirds of the Trinity come flying out of Beau’s mouth as she springs away from the wall, whirling to find a familiar face peeking in through the doorway.

“Sorry,” Jester apologizes quickly. She runs a quick glance over the disaster zone that is the apartment and gasps. “What the fuck happened in here? It sounded like yelling, but then everything got really quiet and I couldn’t make out anything, and I thought maybe—”

Beau narrows her eyes. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“No! Pshh, no, obviously not! The walls are suuuuper thin here, you know that.” The funny thing about Jester is that she really seems to believe what she’s saying on account of the little bit of truth thrown in as defense. “But seriously, what happened? It looks like a crime scene or something!”

There is a multitude of lies Beau could try to tell, and whether or not Jester would choose to believe them is honestly the girl’s choice. But right now, Beau is so damned tired, and she’d just as well go put her crime fighting gear on parade and be over with it.

Still… secrets are secrets.

Beau sighs, letting a laugh slip out with the hoarse air, and slowly walks her neighbor back into the hall until the door can safely close between them both.

“Honestly, Jess— just another day in the life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh so a great big thank you to y'all for your kudos and comments-- it means a lot! <3 I hope you enjoyed this little delve into something unusual. Who knows... there just might be more to come in the future. 0;)


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